SPA 24H: McLaren sets early qualifying pace

McLaren led the way with Shane van Gisbergen in the first two sessions of qualifying for this weekend's Spa 24 Hours, the showpiece race for the Blancpain GT series.

Van Gisbergen claimed the top spot on his first flying lap at the start of the two-hour night qualifying session on Thursday evening aboard the #58 Garage 59 McLaren 650S courtesy of a 2m18.474s effort. That put the New Zealander just 0.058 seconds up on Maximilian Gotz in the HTP Mercedes-AMG GT3, who set his 2m18.532s in the opening 75-minute session.

Van Gisbergen said: "We were 19th at the end of the first qualifying session, so right on the edge [of making Friday's "super pole" session] and needed to do a better job. Of course, that has only got us into the super pole shootout but we are happy with where we are."

The Black Falcon Mercedes squad ended up third with a 2m18.603s set in the opening session from DTM driver Daniel Juncadella aboard its #56 pro-am class entry.

Best Audi was the factory R8 LMS run by two-time Spa winner WRT in fourth place with a 2m18.659s from Laurens Vanthoor.

Felix Rosenqvist was fifth for the French ASP Mercedes team and Christopher Haase sixth aboard the best of the Sainteloc Audis.

The best Bentley was the #8 Continental GT3 in ninth with Maxime Soulet

Nicky Catsburg put the best of the factory Rowe BMW M6 GT3s 19th.

The top 20 cars go through to the final super pole session, which takes place at 6pm local time on Friday.